The 10 Essential Habits Every Photographer Must Develop for Long-Term Growth
- Dre Erwin
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Let’s be honest: it’s easy to fall into the gear trap. We convince ourselves that the newest mirrorless camera or that ultra-fast prime lens is the missing ingredient between where our photography is now and where we want it to be.
But the truth is harder to swallow. Great photography isn't bought; it’s built. It’s built through habit, discipline, and a dedication to seeing the world differently.
Whether you are holding your first DSLR, you’re a seasoned hobbyist feeling stagnant, or you’re a working professional looking to refine your vision, the path to improvement rarely involves a credit card. It involves changing what you do.
If you want to create work that resonates and stands the test of time, you need to cultivate the right practices. Here are the top 10 things every photographer, regardless of genre or experience level, needs to do to continually grow.
1. Absolutely Master the Exposure Triangle
You cannot be a master carpenter if you don't know how to use a hammer. In photography, your hammer is the Exposure Triangle: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.
If you are still relying on "Auto" mode in tricky lighting situations, you are letting the camera make creative decisions for you. The camera aims for average; you should aim for exceptional.
The Action Step: Put your camera in Manual (M) mode for an entire month. Force yourself to understand why raising your ISO introduces grain, or how shutter speed affects motion blur. Until these three elements become second nature, you will always be limited by your gear.
2. Learn to "Read" Light, Not Just See It
Photography literally means "drawing with light." Many photographers are so focused on the subject that they forget to look at the illumination.
Light has characteristics: quality (hard vs. soft), direction (front, side, back), and color (warm vs. cool). A boring subject in spectacular light will always make a better photo than a spectacular subject in boring light.
The Action Step: Leave your camera at home one day. Walk around and just observe. Look at how the shadows fall on a building at 9 AM versus 5 PM. Notice the soft light on an overcast day versus the harsh light at high noon. Train your eye before you train your lens.
3. Print Your Work (Seriously, Do It)
In the digital age, 99% of our photos die on hard drives or exist only as transient pixels on an Instagram feed. This is a tragedy for your growth.
A screen lies to you. It hides imperfections with its own backlighting. When you commit a photo to paper, you see the reality of your edit. You see the color casts, the over-sharpening, and the messy composition elements you missed on the monitor. Printing forces you to be a harsher editor and a better shooter.
The Action Step: Select your best five photos from the last year and get them professionally printed at a decent size (at least 8x10). Hold them in your hands. Study them.
4. Shoot "Projects," Not Just Random Photos
Wandering around hoping to find a good picture—often called "spray and pray"—can be fun, but it rarely leads to deep growth.
Working on a project forces discipline. It forces you to stick with a theme, a subject, or a feeling over a prolonged period. It teaches you how to tell a story rather than just capture a single moment.
The Action Step: Define a 30-day project. It could be anything: "The color red," "My morning commute," or "Hands at work." Commit to shooting only that theme for a month. The constraints will fuel your creativity.
5. Study Composition Beyond the "Rule of Thirds"
The Rule of Thirds is great. It’s also Photography 101. If you stop there, your images will start to look predictably adequate.
To grow, you need to dive deeper into visual design. Learn about leading lines, negative space, framing within a frame, symmetry, patterns, and juxtaposition. Great composition guides the viewer’s eye exactly where you want it to go.
The Action Step: Buy a book on composition that isn't specifically about photography—try a book on classic painting or graphic design. The principles of visual art are universal.
6. Develop a Ruthless Culling Process
Taking photos is easy. Knowing which ones are good is hard.
Many photographers show too much work. They post five variations of the same shot because they can't decide on the best one. Showing mediocre work dilutes the impact of your great work. You must learn to detach yourself emotionally from the effort it took to get the shot and judge only the final result.
The Action Step: The next time you import 500 photos from a shoot, your goal should be to delete 450 of them immediately. Be brutal. If it’s not a "Hell Yes," it’s a "No."
7. Step Outside Your Genre Comfort Zone
Are you a landscape photographer who never photographs people? Are you a portrait photographer terrified of macro work?
Overspecialization leads to visual stagnation. Trying a completely new genre forces you to use different muscles and solve different problems. The skills you learn in one area will surprisingly improve another. Shooting high-speed sports will teach you timing that improves your street photography; shooting intricate macro shots will improve your attention to detail in landscapes.
The Action Step: Rent a lens for a genre you never shoot (e.g., a macro lens or a super-telephoto) for a weekend and commit to only shooting that genre.
8. Master Post-Processing as an Enhancement, Not a Fix
There are two dangerous extremes in editing: the purist who thinks any editing is "cheating," and the sloppy shooter who says, "I'll fix it in post."
Both are wrong. Editing is half of the digital photographic process. Ansel Adams spent hours in the darkroom dodging and burning; Lightroom is just our modern darkroom. You need to learn how to color grade to create a mood, and how to dodge and burn to guide the eye. But never use editing to rescue a photo that was poorly composed or lit.
The Action Step: Choose one editing technique that intimidates you (e.g., luminosity masking or frequency separation) and watch three in-depth tutorials on it this week.
9. Implement a Bulletproof Backup Strategy (Today)
This isn't a creative tip, but it is the most important practical tip on this list. There are two types of photographers: those who have lost data, and those who will.
Hard drives fail. Memory cards corrupt. Laptops get stolen. If your photos only exist in one place, they do not exist.
The Action Step: Follow the 3-2-1 Rule: 3 copies of your data, on 2 different media types (e.g., external hard drive and internal drive), with 1 copy off-site (e.g., cloud storage like Backblaze). Do this before you take another picture.
10. Find Your "Why"
Finally, the most difficult task of all. You can master all the technical skills above, but without a "why," your photos will just be technically proficient, soulless images.
Why do you pick up the camera? What are you trying to say? Are you capturing the fleeting joy of childhood? The stark beauty of urban decay? The quiet dignity of nature?
Finding your voice takes years, but you must start asking the question now. When your work has intention behind it, people will connect with it on a deeper level.
The Action Step: Look at your 10 favorite photos you’ve ever taken. Write down three keywords that describe the emotion of each photo. Look for the patterns in those keywords—that is the beginning of your style.
Conclusion
Improving at photography is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't try to implement all ten of these things this weekend. Pick one or two that resonate most with where you are right now and focus on them for the next month.
The goal isn't to be perfect; the goal is to be better than you were yesterday. Keep shooting, keep learning, and most importantly, keep looking.
Which of these habits do you find the hardest to maintain? Let me know in the comments below.
Recommended Reading & References
If you want to dive deeper into the concepts mentioned above, these are the essential texts that belong on every photographer's bookshelf:
On Lighting: Light Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua.
On Composition: The Photographer's Eye by Michael Freeman.
On Process & Vision: The Camera, The Negative, and The Print (The Ansel Adams Photography Series).
On Workflow: The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers by Peter Krogh.
These are beautiful photos of the aurora borealis will be buying a couple next year love them. Have a lovely Christmas Dre and family